[Trilug-ontopic] linux wireless and cisco(?) APs

[Kevin Hunter]

Hullo TriLUG,

I've been having a problem with my wireless and certain commercial APs 
for about 2 years.  It's always been in a context where something else 
has a higher priority, and I've worked around it, but now I've noted 
someone else with the same problem and I want to solve it.  Since I 
_have_ spent some time debugging this, with a general conclusion that 
it's the fault of the AP, I'm wondering if others have found and fixed 
the issue.

Symptoms:

1. I can connect to the _commercial_ AP for a minute or two before I can 
no longer get any DNS or receive packets at all.  I'm not sure which. 
Quick solution: re-associate (usually twice) to get another minute or 
two window of connectivity.

2. Sometimes I just can't connect, and my wireless interface will never 
get a DHCP lease.

3. Windows and Mac hosts seem to have no problem, but I don't use them 
exclusively to know this.  All I know is that other folks don't complain.

This occurred on an ipw2200 compatible card (before my motherboard 
killed it via bad wiring), and now occurs on my wireless USB dongle with 
proprietary firmware.  I suspect it's some interaction with Cisco APs, 
but I don't know how to definitively confirm that.

Thanks for any and all help!

Kevin